those of you who are on the UC list have heard the saga of scrunch the stray and how we've been trying to find a home for him, only to discover that his home was with us.

well ...

We took scrunch to the vet last week to get his ear mites taken care of. he was such a good boy. he sat on the table and purred while he got his blood drawn. he got de-fleaed, de-mited, de-wormed, got his temperature taken, a shot of pennicillin, a distemper shot, and test for feline AIDS and feline leukemia. the test for AIDS came back positive. all the blood drained from my head and everything seemed far away. I thought I was going to faint. This means that FIV has reached West Philadelphia, and if you have an indoor/outdoor cat, you should probably not let them out anymore. There's no cure for Feline Immunodeficiency Virus.

I've gotten so attached to this little guy in the past weeks and was looking forward to just moving him in with the rest of the cats after what I'd always figured would just be a prefucntory checkup and the killing of a few fleas.

The vet said he could live as long as another ten years, or he could die in two. He's healthy otherwise, but some day he'll start to get sick. The first part of his life has been so awful, I want the rest of it to be good.

http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/cassidy...scrunch/15.jpg
http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/cassidy...scrunch/16.jpg
http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/cassidy...scrunch/17.jpg
http://www.asc.upenn.edu/usr/cassidy...scrunch/18.jpg

Kc

I hadn't realized that it wasn't here. Is there anything else that can be done?

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Illegal aliens have always been a problem in the United States. Ask any Indian. - Robert Orben

you can vaccinate your indoor/outdoor cat, however the vaccine isn't 100% effective AND, after being vaccinated, your cat will ALWAYS test positive for FIV. which means if he gets lost and picked up and taken to a shelter, they'll put him/her down immediately.

Unless it's wearing a collar/has an implant as every dog/cat should have, even if they're indoor only!

My Siamese had FIV and finally succumbed to it after living a great life of about 21 years. The end was unbelievably hard to watch. He just got weaker and weaker. We even put him on Cat IVs from time to time, which I thought my father wouldn't go for since he's um, quite frugal, to say the least. Anyhow, we did what we could but he finally had to be put down.

I think that having an outdoor cat is a little scary in the City. We have a number of neighbors that have had their cats wander off (or get stolen, in one particularly nasty and volatile situation) or get hit.

Cats get FIV mostly from other animals (fights and bites) so the indoor only cat would be safe.

And to echo odragon, ALL pets should be, at the least, collared.

It's a cat..... :what_is_:




"Cat's are free. You put a bowl of milk outside your house at night, boom, you've got yourself a free cat."
-Jon Stewart

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I own a dog, he walks on a lead when we go out or plays out in afenced in garden when alone.

West Philly has more feral cats than I ever saw before. A cat will not stay in a garden, and the lack of castrating and neutering adds to the score that will climb into defile your plants with their feces.

Their great screechings at nightare rattling too. This is city, not Sunnydale Farms.

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Like most everything but abject stupidity. Like most people except the abjectley stupid.

[quote="bgandersen"]Kitty condoms?

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"Things are starting to get interesting right about now"

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All comments made by me on his board are given freely and probably worth what you paid for them.

There are certain neighbors who catch thecats in traps and pay to have them neutered, then let them back out loose, which makes a lot of sense, then I had a neighbor who mixed rat poison into cans of food so we had cats gacking and growing tumors left and right.

If you are going to "husband" an animal companion, then do so. I was tempted to go to New England, buy a carbon rifle and shoot them as they **** in my garden. The gun shop was closed when we dropped by.

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Like most everything but abject stupidity. Like most people except the abjectley stupid.